2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
Event #15
$2,650 Pot-Limit Omaha (Re-Entry) 
Entries: 99
Prize Pool: $240,075
August 14-15, 2017

When Event #15: $2,650 Pot-Limit Omaha returned for Day 2 action on Tuesday, 32-year-old Charlie Coultas, who hails from Washington state, sat 13th out of the 15 surviving players — two of which would leave empty handed.

“I came back 13th in chips near the bubble,” he said. “My girlfriend is a flight attendant and flew out to New York. I was supposed to meet her but had to change my flight after making Day 2, which I was nervous about considering we hadn’t made the money and I was short.”

Fortunately for the full-time poker player, it proved a profitable decision as he quickly built a stack, took the chip lead into the final table and emerged victorious to capture a $73,222 first-place prize. Despite being primarily a PLO cash game player, the win brought his lifetime tournament winnings up to $525,884, which vaults him to 29th on Washington’s all-time poker money list.

Prior to the win, he had $452,662 in cashes including a career-best $236,921 for finishing 34th in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event. In the 2016 WSOP,  he finished fifth in Event #12: $565 Pot-Limit Omaha — then the largest PLO event in history — for $47,092.

In the final hand of this SHRPO tournament, Coultas got it all in with Carlos Gonzalez. On a flop of , the latter had flopped botton set with the . Fortunately for Coultas, he had a bigger one with the . Neither the turn nor river helped Gonzalez and Coultas earned his first-ever documented tournament win.

“Lots of ups and downs,” Coultas added, “but it all obviously worked out.”

Final Results
1st: Charlie Coultas – $73,222
2nd: Carlos Gonzalez – $45,014
3rd: Eric Penner – $27,609
4th: Alex Condon – $18,006
5th: Mike Shin – $14,044
6th: Dermot Blain – $11,224
7th: Chris Wilson – $9,543
8th: Ayaz Mahmood – $8,283
9th: Nicholas Petitti – $7,322
10th: Hector Zayas Vazquez – $6,602
11th: Andy Ly – $6,602
12th: Shannon Shorr – $6,602
13th: Corey Wright – $6,002